Learning German Through Immersion: Week 3

This week was a bit chaotic. Monday we returned from Vienna, Wednesday we visited Mauthausen concentration camp, and on Thursday we had a test in German. This was the first week of only having German twice a week for two hours on Tuesday and Thursday, rather than every day. Tuesday was spent on verb conjugation: regular, irregular, and modal. Class time was dedicated to preparing for our first intermediate test on Thursday. Thursday came and I felt confident about verb conjugation but struggled with two verbs in particular: kommen (to come) and können (to be able). I did okay on the test but walked away feeling frustrated with myself for making simple mistakes.

After completing the test we switched gears and picked a German song to translate. We've done this in past classes and I've found it really helps my reading comprehension and understanding of sentence structure.

Later in the week, I attended St. Rupert's festival in Residenplatz. This was quite an immersive experience. Local breweries and restaurants had food stands and the vast majority of people only spoke German so I found myself creating phrases to navigate the festival. Even while trying to overcome the language barrier I found moments of frustration where I tried to speak German but my mind went blank or found I didn't know the words to convey myself.

My one victory of the week was when I went out to a pub with some friends on Friday night. We found a table in the corner and I found a wallet sitting on the seat. I decided I'd watch over it and turn it into our favorite bartender Daniel if nobody had come back to collect it before we left. Eventually, a man approached our table and started speaking frantic German. I listened and knew instantly what he wanted. I'd like to think I was able to decipher his speak enough to understand but maybe I just made an assumption.

German	English (Literal)
Konnen wir hier sitzen?	Can we here sit?
Was ist das?	What is that?
Kann ich bitte (blank) haben?	Can I please (blank) have?
Entschuldigung, sprechen sie Englisch	Excuse me, speak you English?